Soon after we returned to Sapelo Island in spring of 1981, following a year-and-a-half research sabbatical in Israel, we decided we needed a dog. Barry saw an ad in the local paper, the Darien News: border collie puppies for sale. We didn't really know about the breed, but when we went to the mainland to check it out, we found the cutest black and white ball of fur, so of course we came back to the island with our new puppy. We named her Yofi (YOH-fee), a Hebrew word everyone in Israel used to mean 'That's nice.' (e.g. "We're going on vacation next week.' 'You are? Yofi.')
Photo: Yofi and her pal Claw waiting in our island truck for a ride to the beach, 1982.
It turns out that border collies are full of energy, and Yofi was no exception. Yofi had many adventures on the island that helped us learn about coastal wildlife. She also had an urge to herd, and kept a close eye on our sons Aaron and Jared as if they were her personal flock.
Yofi keeping watch on Aaron and Jared in our backyard on Sapelo Island, 1985.
Yofi loved going to the beach. When you said, "Go beach?" she cocked her head and perked up her ears. When Barry wasn't tossing a tennis ball for her to chase in the surf, she would turn to shepherding the schools of tiny fishes that congregated in the shallow sloughs on the beach at low tide. People who saw Yofi running and jumping around the sloughs would ask whether the dog was a bit crazy. We would explain that she was expressing her champion sheep dog bloodline as best she could. She also herded sand flies and ghost crabs.
In a classic border collie pose, Yofi waits for a tennis ball to be thrown for her to chase in the surf on Nannygoat Beach.
One of Yofi's pals was the Hopkinson's golden retriever, Claw (short for Crabclaw), who lived next door to us. Yofi and Claw had a system for chasing tennis balls on the beach. Claw, being a retriever, would run determinedly straight to the ball and bring it right back. Yofi, in the meantime, ran a longer, curving course, but since she was faster, she would arrive at the ball sooner. She would always wait for Claw to get the ball, and they would both run back together for another throw.
Claw occasionally seemed to go nuts in her backyard. She would stand out in the backyard with her ears cocked to the ground and then suddenly pounce on a patch of grass and start digging away like crazy. When we saw her bring up a little brown body from the hole, we knew she had heard the soft scraping of a mole burrowing under the lawn.
Yofi had another pal, March, a brown mixed breed who was also a neighbor's dog. In the morning, a yapping at our porch door meant that March was outside, asking Yofi to come out for an adventure. The two would disappear down a dike running along the marsh fronting our backyard and then would often be gone all day. When they reappeared at dinnertime, they were usually indistinguishable, both a dark chocolate from the marsh muck covering them from nose to tail.
One day Yofi had a run-in with a cottonmouth snake. She was bitten in the pit of her foreleg during one of her forays into the marsh, and fortunately managed to crawl to the road to the lab before collapsing. When a neighbor found her, her front leg was enormously swollen and oozing blood and pus. We had no idea what had happened, but when we got Yofi to a vet on the mainland, he quickly discovered the wound was from a snakebite. Yofi was treated with antibiotics to minimize infection, but her leg took weeks to completely heal. After that, we all became much more careful when venturing into the marsh or swampy areas.
When we moved to Oregon, Yofi came too. She certainly wasn't out of place; there are lots of sheep in Oregon, and border collie herding exhibitions. Although she was getting a bit old and stiff by then, she still enjoyed playing on Oregon beaches when our family went to the coast. Yofi was a great island dog, and a great family pet.
Yofi and Jared inspecting a long strand of kelp on an Oregon beach, 1991.